Conviction is the rarest resource in the world.

Not money.

Not intelligence.

Not access.

Conviction.

I’ve met a lot of people who are very intelligent and have an awesome (in the literal sense) arsenal of skills and advantages at their disposal.

But that doesn’t make them dangerous, because they usually don’t know where to go with all of this. (In fact,

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I’m thinking about how many people were one or two iterations away from the right formula, but lacked the conviction to stay the course, the understanding that minor, subtle, successive changes can drastically influence outcome. I’m thinking about how self-doubt makes more people abandon a vision than competition or lack of funding ever will.

Conviction often stands in opposition to market trends. To have conviction before validation may make you seem weird or delusional, but it defines great artists—the ability to appreciate what others overlook or even fight against. To borrow YC parlance, they pursue “low-status things.” Maintaining this vision requires courage, especially when it... See more